


Romance and the Stone

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: Graphic Depictions of Illness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-24 03:02:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1589288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris' bedside manner could use some work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Romance and the Stone

Fenris knew something was wrong before he opened his eyes.

Most mornings, he woke because of Hawke: Hawke drooling on his chest, Hawke slinging a sweaty arm across his face, Hawke unleashing a titanic fart...

This morning, there was nothing.

Fenris bolted upright. It took him a moment to make out Hawke on the floor, curled up in a ball beside the chamber pot. Fenris threw off the covers and was by his side in an instant.

"Hawke?" Fenris touched his shoulder. The man was drenched. A burning stink of vomit lifted from the chamber pot, and Fenris could tell from the way Hawke's flesh trembled that something was very, very wrong. "Where does it hurt?"

"Inside. I don't...." His voice sounded strange, high and tight, as if the mere act of speaking was like walking a wire. His eyes were screwed shut and his limbs constricted hard against his body. "My back.....it woke me up....Maker, it ached yesterday but it just started _stabbing-_ "

Fenris peeled up the bottom of Hawke's tunic. There was no injury to be seen. Hawke had winced and groused yesterday about lower back pain, but they had all come back from the Bone Pit like a chest of broken toys, so aches were to be expected. This, though....

"You need the abomination," said Fenris. He wasn't sure why he felt so calm. “I will send Bodahn for him."

The fact that Hawke offered no protest meant he was in trouble. If there was one thing Hawke couldn't stand it was fuss, and now he simply nodded and went back to trembling, trying to ride out the shocks of pain shearing through him.

Fenris went downstairs and knocked on Bodahn's door. He explained quite steadily and succinctly that Anders needed to be brought here, because Messere Hawke was extremely ill and required immediate attention. Bodahn darted off, taking the key to the cellar with him. Half an hour later Anders came panting through the door, face still soft from sleep. To Fenris's annoyance, he swept past him straight to Hawke's side.

"He said his back hurt-" started Fenris.

Anders held up a hand. Irritated, and helpless, Fenris sat down rigid at the end of the bed. Anders and Hawke murmured to each other, the mage pressing his fingers to different spots on Hawke's back until Hawke let out a strangled whimper. A milky glow lit the room as Anders placed a glowing palm to the small of Hawke's back and helped him stand.

"There now," said Anders, "That should give you some temporary relief. Try to walk now, it will relax you better than clenching up."

Hawke groaned and began to shuffle around the room. His feet left sweaty footprints on the tile. Fenris drifted to the mage's side and whispered, "Is he....in danger?"

“Unlikely.” Anders mouth twisted. “He’s just passing a stone.”

Hawke paced back and forth, fingers twisting into his lower back as if he could dig the pain out of his body.

“Oh.” Fenris blinked. His nightmares were often filled with scenarios of Hawke in torment: Hawke burned alive by dragons, Hawke desiccated by giant spiders, but none moreso terrifying than those where he knew he'd be powerless, those where Hawke clutched his heart or writhed under hungry poisons and slow, wasting illnesses that shrunk their world to a bedside. However, if Hawke was in no terminal danger...

“He walks like a woman with child,” mused Fenris.

“Well, they say it is the closest a man can come to experiencing childbirth, so-"

Hawke ground his face into the wainscoting.

“Expect cursing.”

Hawke sank his teeth into a wood panel with an audible _crack._

“And now I have to get back to the clinic," said Anders, a little too cheerful. He gathered his bag and paused long enough at the door to give Fenris an arched eyebrow. "You know, for once I don’t envy you.”

By noon, Hawke was panting. By third bell, he was tearing his clothes off. By the sixth, he was naked on the floor, cursing his father, cursing Andraste, cursing flesh and blood and what in the bloody Void was the Maker thinking inflicting this much misery on a mortal body-

Fenris sat in a chair with a glass of wine and an open book. Hawke was in no danger of dying, and though he twinged in sympathy to see his lover so afflicted, to also see sweet, shy, diplomatic Hawke come completely undone like this…

“STOP TURNING THE PAGES SO LOUD, YOU COCKSUCKING ELF!”

Was almost entertaining.

Fenris sipped his wine and set the book on the bedside table. Hawke took two tight strides across the room and slapped the glass out of his hand.

“Would you like me to help you redecorate the walls?” said Fenris.

For a moment he thought Hawke might strangle him, but instead a paroxysm strangled the man's body and dropped him boneless on the floor. Fenris quickly drenched a cloth in cold water and laid it across the back of his neck.

“Maker…..I hate you,” whimpered Hawke.

Fenris kissed his slick shoulder.

By midnight, Hawke was sobbing. When he had no more sweat or tears left, he braced himself in a corner over the chamber pot, his entire body boiling. Fenris stood back as Hawke screamed as if an ogre was charging through his bladder, and then—

_Plink._

Plink? Fenris started to lean over to see what had come out in the copper chamber pot, until a geyser of bloody brown urine nearly sprayed him in the face. Hawke groaned the stream out of his body, a wave of sweat washing down his naked torso, then staggered backwards into bed. Fenris curled his nose and held the chamber pot near the light of the fire. There, rolling in the reeking urine around the bottom, was what looked like a black grain of sand.

"That’s it?" He snorted. “From that performance I expected a meteor."

Hawke groaned and curled up on himself, muscles twitching.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

"You are often sorry," muttered Fenris. He tipped the stone from the chamber pot into one of the many empty bottles of wine littered around the room. He rattled it, then brought it to the bedside. "Though I dare say this one is a rarity in Kirkwall for not being your fault."

Hawke was too drained to turn his head, but one glance at the jagged pebble and he buried his face back in the pillow. "You won't be laughing when it happens to you."

"No," Fenris agreed, and spun the bottle between his palms, the stone tinkling merrily. "But I will have you to take care of me."

"....Yes," Hawke said, after a long, _long_ minute. "And won't that be fun."


End file.
